Global warming fuels unemployment rate in summer Masahiro Yoshida from Waseda University’s Department of Political Science and Economics finds that global warming raises summertime unemployment. Since the Great Depression in the 1930s, the unemployment rate has been a central input to policy debates (e.g., fiscal and monetary policy, minimum wage legislation). It has long been monitored as a “temperature” of economic health (Beveridge, 1931) because joblessness hampers households’ ability to smooth consumption, undermines mental health, and even elevates crime and suicide risks.
Masahiro Yoshida (2026) studied this question.